Greenlee adds new death to increase total to seven
By Jon Johnson
SAFFORD – Halfway through February, Graham County’s recovered COVID-19 cases now outnumber active cases 4-1 and the county has only registered three deaths. Greenlee County – the county with the fewest number of total cases and deaths – registered one new death to increase its total to seven for the course of the pandemic.
Graham County registered 14 deaths in January attributed to COVID-19, giving the county 17 for 2021 and 68 for the course of the pandemic.
New positive tests for COVID-19 have slowed down considerably for Graham County, especially when tests from prisons are not included. On Monday, the Graham County Department of Health and Human Services reported just one new positive test – from the Pima zip code.
Graham County has now had 5,218 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic, with 1,013 active cases, 4,137 recovered cases, and 68 deaths. Graham County has the third-lowest overall death count with La Paz County (67) and Greenlee County (7) having less. La Paz County has about half the population of Graham County, and Greenlee has about a quarter of the population. Graham County has also had more than twice as many confirmed cases of COVID-19 than La Paz, yet only one more death.
Arizona has been reported as one of the hotspots of the world for new COVID-19 cases, and Graham County is the third-highest county with the most cases per population. According to the Arizona Department of Health Services’ COVID-19 Data Dashboard, as of Thursday, Graham County was listed as having a percentage of 13,561 cases per 100,000 residents. Even with the influx of cases in correctional facilities, however, Graham County is still behind Yuma County (15,690 per 100,000), Santa Cruz County (14,252 per 100,000), and Apache County (14,140 per 100,000), and is just in front of Navajo County (13,528 per 100,000) in the rate of transmission per population. Conversely, Greenlee County – where there are no correctional facilities – has the lowest rate in Arizona with 5,253 per 100,000, according to Thursday’s numbers from the ADHS, the state average is 11,108 per 100,000.
Graham County’s demographics of cases include 722 under the age of 20, 2,581 between the ages of 20-44, 791 between the ages of 45-54, 559 between the ages of 55-64, 556 who are 65 years old or older, and nine who are unknown.
Greenlee County
Greenlee County listed a new death attributed to COVID-19 to increase its total to seven. Additional information is reportedly set to be released Monday night.
Greenlee County also previously added one new COVID-19 case on Friday to increase its total to 547, with 486 recovered, 55 active cases, and seven deaths – according to the Arizona Department of Health and Human Services.
As of Sunday, the Greenlee County Health Department has administered 4,799 tests, with 4,252 negative results, and 547 positive results.
Statewide
On Monday, the ADHS listed 1,338 new cases to bring its total for the pandemic to 798,608 in Arizona. The department didn’t add any new deaths attributed to COVID-19 on Monday, keeping the total for Arizona at 14,978 dead attributed to COVID-19.
The breakdown of total cases by county includes Maricopa with 499,105, Pima – 107,058, Pinal – 44,795, Yuma – 36,082, Mohave – 20,575, Yavapai – 16,719, Coconino – 16,043, Navajo – 15,263, Cochise – 10,830, Apache – 10,154, Santa Cruz – 7,577, Gila – 6,288, Graham – 5,218, La Paz – 2,356, and Greenlee – 545 (county lists it at 547).
